Beginning of the End
by chrissie0707
Summary: Tag for 13X05 "Advanced Thanatology." Dean's died a hundred different ways and not all of them were bloody, but with this one he has hardly a mark on him. Instead, it's Sam who feels brutalized.


**Beginning of the End**

* * *

 _Stupid, stubborn asshole_.

He spends the first minute fretting, sets a timer on his watch and quickly lays a thick salt circle around his prone brother, in case one of these ghosts gets grabby hands.

The second minute is an exercise in pure panic, the longest fucking sixty seconds of his life. It feels like an hour must have passed since Dean stopped breathing, the time counting down on his watch at an excruciatingly slow pace.

By minute three, he's muttering to himself, gripping the syringe in a sweaty fist and preparing to rip Dean a new one over this. If not for the way he tossed his own life down without blinking, like it was just another weapon he'd pulled from the duffel, then for putting Sam through these three agonizing minutes.

That's where he's settled, on anger and indignation, when the timer goes off. He clenches his jaw and feels out the right spot on his brother's chest, delivers the shot. He winces as the needle pierces layers of fabric, skin, and muscle, and holds his breath.

And nothing happens.

"Dean." Sam watches his brother's lax face, pats his shoulder. "Dean."

Nothing. Dean remains eerily still, frighteningly pale.

 _No, no, nonononono._

"Hey! Dean!"

A violent wave of mixed emotion crashes into Sam, until he can't separate any single one from the din that leaves his head buzzing and his ears ringing. He shakes his brother's shoulder roughly and desperately, his voice pitched with hysteria. "No, no, no…come on, Dean."

This can't be happening. Not now. Not after everything he'd done to keep them from getting here. He played it safe, and followed all of the rules.

The past couple of days, Sam wasn't just being nice to his brother, he was fucking terrified for him.

A beer with breakfast might not be Sam's first choice – or second, or seventh – but had seemed like an easy compromise given the circumstances. Hell, he had no problem buying Dean a full friggin' _forty_ , a little hair of the dog to pair well with five pounds of bacon: hangover brunch of champions. They could embark on a tour of every seedy strip club between here and the Mississippi, and he'd listen to nothing but Zeppelin and Van Halen for the rest of his goddamn _life_ , if that's what it took for Dean to dig himself out of the hole he'd fallen into. Sam could easily accommodate all of that. Because it was annoying, cringe-worthy behavior, but infinitely better than the alternative.

Another bolt of lightning rips past the stained-glass window over Sam's head, illuminating Dean's unmoving body, his shockingly white face.

 _This_ was the alternative, and had been from the very jump.

Because when Dean's feeling low, it's not just bullets, bacon, and booze that make an appearance, but also a brazen disregard for his own wellbeing. He's always thrown himself into hunting like it's a kind of incredibly violent therapy, lifting the weight from his shoulders piece by piece, blow by blow, and counting each life saved as a reason to stick it out at least one more day. And he's always been the kind of guy who would fling himself into the fire to save just one person, but this move wasn't about _saving people_.

This was…it was…

"Come on, Dean," Sam pleads with his unresponsive brother, voice cracking.

 _I just need three minutes._

Like it was a goddamned guarantee.

Or like he didn't even care.

This wasn't about saving people, it was just an excuse.

 _No._ No matter what the niggling little voice in his head says, he won't believe it. He can't. " _Come_ on, Dean."

The seconds continue to tick by. Sam thumps at his brother's chest, pats his cool cheek, and refuses to acknowledge the gnawing pit of fear growing in his own chest.

Then Dean comes back, eyes blowing open as he arches up from the dusty rug with a loud, violent inhale.

Sam melts a little with the relief of hearing that desperate breath, feeling light-headed as he paws at his brother's heaving shoulders. "Hey. You okay?"

"Yeah," Dean rasps, an entirely unconvincing sound of struggle and discomfort. He folds over, presses a hand to his undoubtedly aching chest.

"You're okay," Sam says, mostly to himself, but his voice shakes and his own heart continues to race. He falls back against the wall, puts a hand to his head.

Dean splutters for a bit, boot heels scuffing against the rug as he makes noises similar to a fish stranded on a dock, trying to work lungs that haven't inflated in nearly five minutes.

 _GOD, Dean. What the hell were you thinking?_

The words, the prepared lecture, are on the tip of his tongue, but Sam swallows them back, because he's pretty sure he doesn't _want_ to know what Dean was thinking. Or he's just afraid that he already knows. He shoves away from the wall and puts a firm hand on his brother's heaving chest, comforts himself with the uneven, rapid heartbeat tripping beneath his palm.

Dean doesn't move to shake him away, just sits and stares blankly at the floor as his breathing begins to even out. With a tug of the collar of his brother's t-shirt, Sam confirms the presence of two neat holes in his chest, already ringed with dark bruising. One the size of a dime, from the first injection, delivered hard and fast so Dean couldn't second-guess and stop himself.

And so Sam couldn't stop him.

 _God, Dean._

 _What the hell were you thinking?_

* * *

Dean's died a hundred different ways and not all of them were bloody, but with this one he has hardly a mark on him. Instead, it's Sam who feels brutalized.

They call in the bodies. There's no need for paramedics but they come anyway, in the first wave of response vehicles, the ambulance pulling silently and without ceremony up the gravel drive behind the state troopers.

Sam watches the caravan approach from the porch, clenches his jaw. "You should let them check you out." He doesn't even want to think about the trauma his brother's just put his heart through, the serious, possibly permanent damage he might have inflicted on himself, but that doesn't mean he can ignore it.

Especially since this isn't the first time Dean's done something like this. Far from it.

His brother doesn't straighten from his lean against the railing. Dean's throat works around a swallow, and he manages a nearly imperceptible shake of his head. "What am I supposed to tell them, Sam?"

"I know. I just…" He just needs someone to tell him that his brother is going to be okay. Because from where he's standing, Dean looks about as bad, about as _not fucking okay_ as he's ever been.

His brother's eyes are dull and his color is appalling, but not so bad, Sam supposes, when you take into consideration that he was DEAD less than an hour ago. He's leaning heavily against the porch rail, hasn't really chanced taking on the whole standing-and-walking thing completely on his own just yet. There's no real rhythm to his breathing, which is shallow and audible from across the porch.

A phantom pain stings in Sam's belly, at the site of a small, puckered scar. This feels too much like Grangeville, like the last time Dean had to be brought back to life with a needle to the chest. It had been touch-and-go there for twenty-four hours or so, while Sam pushed through his own fair amount of pain to make sure his brother survived the overdose and the brutal efforts to revive him, and he'd been so overcome with relief that Dean was _okay_ that he hadn't said any of the things he needed to.

Right on cue, Dean sucks in a breath, squeezes his eyes shut and presses a hand to his chest. He frowns, folds a bit over the railing, and what pitifully little color is left in his face drains out.

Sam's own heart hiccups. "Dean?"

"I'm fine." He straightens, mostly, and jerks his chin toward the arriving officers. "We should do this."

Sam holds out a hand. "I got it. You just…stay back. Take it easy." He trots down the porch steps just as a black vehicle takes the turn into the driveway, fishing his badge out of his jacket pocket.

His breath catches at the sight of the coroner's van, remembering the eerie, frightening stillness of his brother on that landing upstairs, and he can't believe _this_ is where they are.

* * *

Dean probably shouldn't be driving.

Sam had just been so thrown by his brother's confession that when Dean pulled the keys from his pocket and dropped behind the wheel of the Impala, he'd moved somewhat robotically to the passenger side, head swimming with too much emotional turmoil to leave room for rational thought.

 _So now you don't believe anymore?_

 _I just need a win. I just need a damn win._

Sam knows the feeling, and also knows that Dean _definitely_ shouldn't be driving right now.

His brother grunts, and his fingers tighten around the steering wheel, absorbing the pain that's no doubt flaring in his aching chest.

Sam feels a flare of his own, of sympathy, because Dean really has to be feeling like shit, but there's also a red-hot anger building inside. He's furious with his brother, at what he's done, and there's a lot he wants to say to the man. Things like _where the hell did you get that crap?_ And _how long have you been packing a suicide kit in the weapons bag?_

And then there are the things he _needs_ to say, that he should have when he last found himself with the opportunity, like _you can't ever do that again._

He has a lot of new information to process: Billie as Death and her statement – or potential threat – that they're important and have work to do. But he also has an obligation to his brother, a responsibility to make sure this moment doesn't get away from him like the last one did. Because Sam has a horrible habit of speaking up too late, but that's not a luxury he has now, not when he just watched his brother kill himself like it was the only option they had. Dean's heart has been through the wringer, emotionally and very much literally, and they really will be lucky if there's been no permanent damage done from whatever was in those needles.

They drive another five or so miles in silence, each one taking an obvious additional toll on his brother. Fine lines appear at the corners of Dean's eyes, and his shoulders sag in exhaustion. In the late morning light, his complexion is atrocious, verging on gray.

Sam shifts on the bench and exhales, rubs a hand down the thigh of his jeans. "Dean."

"I'm fine, Sam."

"You're not, but that's not what I was gonna say."

"Okay." A beat. His brother doesn't look over, visibly stiffening in anticipation of what Sam's about to say. Because Dean might not know for sure what's coming, but he knows he's not going to like it. "What were you gonna say?"

"What you did back there, Dean…you can't do that again." Sam swallows, stares at the side of his brother's head. "You can't make a habit out of this, like dying, even for a few minutes, isn't a big deal." Knowing full-well that he already has.

"You were dead, Sam," Dean says quietly. "I thought you were dead." He purses his lips, doesn't speak for a long moment before adding, "and twice isn't a habit."

A muscle in Sam's jaw jumps, and he grinds his teeth together. "Three."

His brother's eye twitches, but he doesn't look over. "What?"

"Three times," Sam grits. He's venturing into uncharted territory here. This is one of those taboo things they've never really chanced talking about, for obvious reasons. "You've done this to yourself three times, Dean."

"What are you – "

"My soul?" Sam rotates on the seat to better face his brother, doesn't pull his punches. "Death putting the wall in my head? Any of this ringing a bell?"

Dean's eyes dart over and back. He taps the pad of his thumb against the wheel, slowly, then picking up tempo as he speaks. "Cas told you?"

" _You_ should've told me. That you _died,_ Dean. Again."

His brother rolls his eyes tiredly. "Give me a break, Sam. Isn't there some kind of statute of limitations on you ridin' my ass?"

Sam shakes his head. "Not about this. Not about your life."

Dean thumps his palm lightly on the wheel. "We needed to know where those bodies were buried, Sam."

"We could have found another way," Sam argues. "One that didn't involve you killing yourself." He shakes his head. "Where did you even _get_ that stuff?"

"Doc Roberts gave 'em to me." Dean lifts a shoulder, tilts his chin. "After…"

Sam almost comes off the bench and goes straight through the windshield. He whirls on his brother, grits his teeth. "You've had those syringes on you for seven years?"

Dean finally turns his head, gaze blank and steady. "What do you want me to say, Sam?"

He'd throttle the stupid son of a bitch if it wasn't the last thing Dean needed. "I want you to promise me that you won't do anything this _stupid_ again."

Dean shakes his head, turns his attention back to the road. "I can't promise that, Sam," he says in a low, raw voice.

 _You have to_ , Sam's mouth drops open to argue, but he hears what his brother isn't saying, what that unbelievably frustrating statement _really_ means. Because if Dean's still willing to put his own life on the line, not to save his brother but just to put a random handful of ghosts at peace, then there might yet be a light at the end of this horribly bleak tunnel.

 _I need you to keep the faith, for both of us,_ he'd said. He just might still believe in Sam.

And that just might be enough.

* * *

 _End_

* * *

 _Author Note: Twelve years later and I still get a rush of nervous energy every time I go to post a new story. Also, for anyone who didn't know/look it up like I did, thanatology is the scientific study of death._


End file.
